all the while finding inspiration acquiring techniques watching for the original

the electric the undone

the doesn’t-fit

…

though the raging success and flourishing and nourishing of August got us no work back in London no gigs no respect

no nothing for it was best to ignore us

[though every poetry attempt at Edinburgh was failure until 2002 and Ross Sutherland]

…

then in 2000-1 because of the Fringe I moved to Scotland

to be with a Scottish Jewish Russian diamond heiress novelist mother as you do

and I shed a whole bunch of skins and cut all ties to those nasty London bastards and started running poetry cabarets and slams

and was described by the Scotsman as “The Godfather of Scottish Performance Poetry”

…

all because the Fringe brought me north

and out of London the best move I ever made

…

while, after 3 or so years Scotland on Sunday the main Scottish Sunday called me the biggest thing to happen in Scottish Poetry since the 50s

…

for, as the biggest Scottish poetry publisher

my friendGavin MacDougall told me he never saw a rise in sales like the first years after my arrival so me, who had no intention of selling a book ever

sold a lot of poetry books

so i was putting food in the mouths of those self-loving

stationary poetry book people who were, by their very drabness were taking food out of mine

…

all because the Fringe brought me north

and out of London best move I ever made

…

when, at the start of that project

in 2001

after a chance encounter with a Welsh Comedian in Camden Passage I tried Toronto Fringe as a two-hander withMc Jabber who never showed up

so I had 36 hours to reinvent myself as a solo show

and it was a TOTAL REVELATION I’d never properly done an hour show and this was electrifying and I shed a whole bunch of skins

…

my first show was going great but I was already thinking

THIS IS GOING BRILLIANT

I SHOULD HAVE BEEN DOING THIS YEARS AGO

BUT I AM GOING TO DO THIS SO MUCH BETTER TOMORROW

…

tomorrow it went great

but I was already thinking

THIS IS GOING BRILLIANT

I SHOULD HAVE BEEN DOING THIS YEARS AGO

BUT I AM GOING TO DO THIS SO MUCH BETTER TOMORROW

…

and every day I threw another poem out of the show but it never got shorter as i juggled all the differents and, as a performer, I got progressively more

gleefully full-on and demented

…

while, in theatre terms

because i knew so little about capital T Theatre

I had no idea what was original what was risky what was unseen

unsaid

… till

at the end of Toronto

I realised there was a big party brewing in the West in the Prairies

but that I was heading in the wrong direction

East

…

so in 2002 I did Montreal and Ottawa Fringes which were great but in 2003 I won the CAFF Touring Lottery and nothing was ever the same again ever

and I did get to go West

by coach from Toronto

into the vastness of the Prairies

and freedom

where my first Winnipeg experience blew my head off the Festival was plain gorgeous

and I got a five star review every day for four days quickly sold out and never looked back with shows selling out in 5 minutes flat

…

and Winnipeg, late July

has almost always been my best two weeks of the year ever since

…

while once again, on the Tour there had never really been a performance poet and I rampaged flyering like no-one ever

Saskatoon Fringe

Edmonton Fringe Vancouver Fringe

till I arrived and survived

for the first out of 13 times, so far

UTTERLY SHATTERED

onto the beaches of the far coast

…

I’d count the thousands of dollars into wads

throw them over my shoulder

and count them again

…

all the while finding inspiration technique

watching for the original

the electric the undone the doesn’t-quite-fit

…

for the Canadian Fringe is the best way of performing I have ever heard of so doable so fabulously doable

while its the only proper money I’ve ever made from concrete atoll to concrete atoll across the sea of green

and so I shed a whole bunch of skins and began to free myself from all the tiresome cavilling done-with-that this-is-so-much-better

Caledonian grief

…

because this

THIS

was the most fun I ever had in my life

though tough

and an emotional rollercoaster for its way way up and its way way down

it will reduce you to emotional jelly if you let it it will shake you apart if you let it and it did

while, to push the point, it was more fun than anything else ever

…

and all the talent all the chutzpah the mind-boggling invention the gleeful fun of mind and word and body from Jabber, andTim Turnbull, way back when and Pink Sly and Akure Wall and Mr Social Control [where are you now, Dave?] and Christopher Twigg andStacy Makishi and now, again, here in Canada

so, in 2006, I stopped having a proper home and became a modern incarnation of the itinerant poet the wandering bard with no possessions except laptop passport and bank-card and an evolving collection of 20 shirts which is all I need these liberated days

…

while i was never any good at possessions anyhow or much good at domesticity the field of which

did not mourn my passing

…

for the Fringe has released me from so many ties

freed me to create whatever I want and go wherever I want for you can create whatever you want on the Tour as long as you create something audience will want and give yourself time.. anywhere…

India? why not? Indonesia? why not?

way up the Amazon? why not Vietnam Spain Cyprus Winnipeg Thailand, why not?

as long as you give yourself the time to get it first good and then killer the space to allow it breathe and stretch

and fully extend and reach and flower

…

for the Fringe has been a vital force in my life a great change for the good

a liberation of life of art of mind of body so here we go the first World Fringe Day sounds good to me great to me

…

and here we go another charge into the Prairies sounds good to me great-fabulous-killer to me and here we go Ottawa